Daily Archives: August 15, 2009

The advertisement above comes from July 1927, and it speaks for itself, euphorically.

Here are three photographs taken at Jelly Roll Morton’s 1939 Victor date. Their source is an incomparable UK jazz site which offers more information about Morton than you would encounter elsewhere: http://www.doctorjazz.co.uk.

Here’s one I hadn’t seen before — Jelly with two music lovers who would go on to create jazz treasures: young Harry Lim (left) who would begin the majestic series of Keynote recordings in a few years, and Steve Smith, whose HRS Records would feature Bechet, Muggsy Spanier, Joe Thomas, Johnny Hodges, and other bright lights.

In the photo below, I imagine Harry Lim thinking, “This looks like fun. I could do this, too!” As he did.

All of this pleasant rumination was sparked by a purchase I made yesterday in an antiques / collectables store on Warren Street in Hudson, New York, that has mountains of records for sale — mostly Fifties and Sixties rock and pop, but there are the vestiges of a large jazz vinyl collection. Most of it appeals to me for sentimental reasons: “I had that record,” goes through my mind as I flip through the browsers. But I encountered a half-dozen 78s — a Kenton Capitol, Ellington’s Victor I GOT IT BAD / THE CHOCOLATE SHAKE, two of the red-label Columbia Bessie Smith reissues, and this beauty, close to mint condition:

“Dance Orchestra,” if you needed to be told.

The records aren’t expensive, so there was never a question in my mind about taking this one home. When I finished looking at the records (there are always more than I can bear to go through), I walked towards the friendly woman proprietor, who saw what she was dealing with — a happy man trying to keep his pleasure within bounds — and she grinned, “YOU’VE found a treasure, haven’t you?!” I assume that my emotions showed on my face.

And, just to show how everything connects, at the top of the page is a genuine Red Hot Pepper that the Beloved grew in her extraordinarily bountiful container garden. “Hotter than the Devil’s kitchen” describes the experience of eating it most precisely.